Need Avice on Playing Up!

[Guest]

Sorry that this isn't exactly the right place for my post ...

I need advice on whether my son should play up. He's on a house U-10 team, narrowly missed making the u-10 select team last spring, has improved since then. The U-11A coach is impressed by his play and is seriously considering him for what will be the U-12 select A team this coming fall. This team will mostly play U-13B teams in the greater metro area.

My son is real excited about the prospect of making this team, he gets along great with older kids, learns skills quickly, but he is born late in the year and already one of the youngest on his house team. My big concern is the increased potential for injury playing among the bigger boys. I'm new to soccer - any advice on whether to let him play on this team is greatly appreciated.

[Unregistered]

My opinion, based on our experience! People will disagree, I'm sure!

1) Around here there is a very big difference in house/rec and select soccer. Moving from rec (house) to select in the same age, is a big step. Moving rec to select / up a year is 2 really big steps.

2)The biggest benefit of playing up, for us, has not been technical skills - those need to be in place first - he needs to be able to hold his own with the ball at his feet. Is he at the level of a 12/13 y/o dribbling, "trick moves", shooting with both feet, passing/1touching with both feet, juggling?

3)For us, my son went from U9 to U12, in steps, over the last 6 months. If the child has individual skills equivilant to the older kids, the biggest differences I notice between a U9 team and a U12 team are: speed of players, aggression, speed of play, speed of ball movement/team passing (decision making on and off the ball), and power in the shots/kicks.

So far, playing up has been really beneficial for us because my son is very good technically, and has been able to work on skills listed in #3 with the team (would not get the same results at a U9 level)

I have seen my son play so much better than he has ever played before, b/c the level the games is much better. He's really had to push himself, but he is the type of kid that will bust his butt to be better, to win, ect.
If your son can handle the physical side (not every game, but in most, the kids are much bigger and don't take it easy on the smaller ones - not that I expect them to at all). Really think about it and speak to him about how he feels about bigger kids trying to push him around - some have hit puberty and are significantly bigger. I think he is more likely to be really hurt playing with less experienced kids his own age (i.e., wild kicks to the knee, slides that are not done right, ect) than with bigger kids who know what they're doing- advanced players will probably just knock'em around a bit).

If he thinks he can do it, and is advanced for his age technically, its worth it - IMO.

Good luck